As we acknowledge the first official UN World Toilet Day on November 19, it is worth reaffirming the significance of this very simple instrument, which the Economist hails as the most important invention in the 20th century, and its potential impact on the world.

Shockingly, there are 2.5 billion people today who don’t have access to a safe means of disposing human feces, which contain pathogens that cause diarrheal disease. Access to sanitation is one of the most off-track of the Millennium Development Goals. Over 1 billion people defecate in the open, contaminating the area where children play, the agricultural fields where people gather food and the rivers used for drinking water.

Thousands of children die every day from related diarrheal disease. In infants it can cause malnutrition, which can lead to stunted growth and impaired cognitive development with negative consequences for school performance as well as poor health outcomes later in life. A recent World Bank report finds that open defecation can account for much or all of the excess stunting in India.

November 06, 2013

Rising inequality translates to rising extreme poverty. The numbers and percent of population living in extreme poverty is going up.
”It was his first post-election news conference, at a luxurious villa high above the Congo River, and the president of the Democratic Republic of Congo was in a combative mood. How dare the reporters question his country’s progress, he argued: just look at our sizzling growth rate —double, even triple, the rates of those pitiful laggards in the West.”

”On paper, it was certainly true. Many African nations, including Congo, have been expanding rapidly for years, producing some of the fastest-growing economies in the world.”
”But the reality down below the villa, in crumbling shacks where adults talked of forgoing meals so their children could eat, told a different story. It angered the president, Joseph Kabila, on that steamy December morning in 2011 to be reminded that his misnamed country (neither particularly democratic nor a republic) consistently ranked at or near the very bottom of the United Nations Human Development Index, a comprehensive measure of economic, physical and social well-being across nearly 200 countries.”

October 10, 2013

Congo has given the world so much. It has given slaves, ivory, rubber, copper, uranium, diamonds, tin, cobalt, and coltan to develop the western world.
In return, it's people live in deadly extreme poverty. I see it every day. They try to survive without clean water, basic health care, electricity, roads, basic food and more.
Read Dan Snow's article for about Congo's giving. Oops! It's receives charity and foreign aid to survive another day so they can keep on giving.
The full article at http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24396390
(excerpt) The Democratic Republic of Congo is potentially one of the richest countries on earth, but colonialism, slavery and corruption have turned it into one of the poorest, writes historian Dan Snow.
The world's bloodiest conflict since World War II is still rumbling on today.
It is a war in which more than five million people have died, millions more have been driven to the brink by starvation and disease and several million women and girls have been raped.
The Great War of Africa, a conflagration that has sucked in soldiers and civilians from nine nations and countless armed rebel groups, has been fought almost entirely inside the borders of one unfortunate country - the Democratic Republic of Congo.

It is a place seemingly blessed with every type of mineral, yet consistently rated lowest on the UN Human Development Index, where even the more fortunate live in grinding poverty.

September 04, 2013

Achieving the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) for water is within reach even for rural Congo. It will not be done by 2015 but at some point in the not too distance future. However, sanitation is problem globally.
I see the sanitation problem and related issues every where. It's a stinking, dirty mess!
Fifty years ago, I hated going into outhouses in the rural South (US). Today, I hate going into pit latrines in urban Congo. When is it going to end?

Over 2.5 billion people currently lack access to improved sanitation - including one billion people practicing open defecation. Addressing the ‘unfinished business’ of the MDGs is a high priority in the post-2015 sustainable development framework. There is growing country based and global stakeholder consensus that post-2015 sanitation related goals and targets should aim for the global elimination of open defecation by 2025 and the universal access to sanitation by 2030.

In April 2013 the World Bank Development Committee endorsed the following goals: End extreme poverty and; promote shared prosperity and foster income growth of the bottom 40% of the population in every country. Eliminating open defecation globally and achieving universal access to sanitation is key to achieving both of these goals.

May 20, 2013

Malaria is preventable and curable. But the poor don't have the resources. Thousands of children under five years old die each year.
Insecticide treated nets (ITN) are not available in some areas. And when they are available, their costs may put them out of reach of the poor.
Finally, the availability and cost of treatment repeats the same story.

KAMPALA, 20 May 2013 (IRIN) - Gaps in the healthcare system in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are hampering the fight against malaria, a leading killer of children, say experts.
Malaria accounts for about a third of outpatient consultations in DRC clinics, Leonard Kouadio, a UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) health specialist, told IRIN. He added, “It is the leading cause of death among children under five years and is responsible for a significant proportion of deaths among older children and adults.”

Kouadio continued: “Recent retrospective mortality surveys have revealed that in all regions of the country, the fever is associated with 40 percent of [deaths of] children under five.”
Malaria is also a leading cause of school absenteeism in DRC, and it may have other adverse effects. “In cases of severe malaria, children who survive face serious health problems such as epilepsy, impaired vision or speech,” he said.

According to UN World Health Organization (WHO) estimates, out of about 660,000 malaria deaths globally in 2010, at least 40 percent occurred in DRC and Nigeria.
In DRC, malaria accounts for about half of all hospital consultations and admissions in children younger than five, according to the government’s National Programme for the Fight against Malaria (NMCP). On average, Congolese children under five years old suffer six to 10 episodes of malaria per year, according to UNICEF’s Kouadio.

Other leading causes of death among under-five Congolese children include acute respiratory infections, diarrhoeal diseases and malnutrition, according to UNICEF’s 2013-2017 DRC Country Programme Document.

More than one million babies a year die the day they are born, and the 14 countries with the highest rates of first-day deaths are all in Africa, according to a report released on Tuesday.
The five countries with the highest rates of such deaths are Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, Sierra Leone and the Central African Republic, according to the report, “Surviving the First Day,” from the aid group Save the Children.

“Health care for mothers in sub-Saharan Africa is woefully insufficient,” the report said. “On average, only half the women in the region receive skilled care during birth. The region as a whole has only 11 doctors, nurses and midwives per 10,000 people, less than half the critical threshold of 23 generally considered necessary to deliver essential health services.”

April 23, 2013

Holy Mental Deficits! Wow! Cassava could be mentally retarding babies and children.
Congolese babies are weaned on cassava. It's their first food. And they grow up eating it at least once a day or more.
More tests should be done. Since it acts like lead paint toxic, then what do you do for the hundreds of millions of babies and children who eat it every day?

Konzo, a disease that comes from eating bitter cassava that has not been prepared properly - that is, soaked for days to break down its natural cyanide - has long been known to cripple children.
The name, from the Yaka language of Central Africa, means "tied legs," and victims stumble as if their knees were bound together.
Now researchers have found that children who live where konzo is common but have no obvious physical symptoms may still have mental deficits from the illness.
Cassava, also called manioc or tapioca, is eaten by 800 million people around the world and is a staple in Africa, where bitter varieties grow well even in arid regions. When properly soaked and dried, and especially when people have protein in their diet, bitter cassava is "pretty safe," said Michael J. Boivin, a Michigan State psychiatry professor and lead author of a study published online by Pediatrics. "But in times of war, famine, displacement and hardship, people take shortcuts."

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, Dr. Boivin and colleagues gave tests of mental acuity and dexterity to three groups of children. Two groups were from a village near the Angolan border with regular konzo outbreaks: Half had leg problems; half did not but had cyanide in their urine. The third was from a village 125 miles away with a similar diet but little konzo because residents routinely detoxified cassava before cooking it.

The children from the latter village did "significantly better" on tests of remembering numbers, identifying objects, following mazes and fitting blocks together, while healthy-looking children from the first village did almost as badly as children with obvious konzo.

The mental damage was like that done by lead exposure but more subtle, Dr. Boivin said.

April 21, 2013

Solar energy is the right and the only solution for the Congo. The grid is a long, long, LONG, way in the future.
Electricity is so essential development. It's lighting, refrigeration for vaccines, communication, powering devices, and much much more.
Here's the story.
Solar engineers, Barefoot style
Barefoot College: Geetanjali Krishna | Apr 19 , 2013
Last Update at 22:38 IST
It was a dusty stone building, not unlike many that one sees in the desert. Outside, all was quiet in the heat of the day. From within, however, strains of a Colombian folk song redolent of the rain forest wafted through. I followed the music to the building. In a hall that looked like a classroom-cum-factory floor, I was greeted by the sight of five groups of women - black, white and all shades in between, sitting together in perfect harmony, assembling complicated-looking circuits. I was in Tilonia's Barefoot College, and this was my first glimpse of its 10th batch of solar engineers - all illiterate grandmothers from the poorest villages of Colombia, Nicaragua, Madagascar and Panama. They were learning how to assemble, maintain and operate solar lighting equipment; so that when they returned, they could bring light to their own communities.

I watched them at work - thinking if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I might not have believed it was possible. "It's actually not that hard," said Ghuman Singh, their short, bespectacled teacher who has been associated with Barefoot College since 1998. "People who've had formal education often don't understand that you don't need to have a degree to be an engineer or a scientist. These ladies are living proof that anyone can be given technical training!" He showed me around the room, dominated by a large blackboard. All the components used in the circuit were clearly colour-coded. "Our training modules are all practice-based. This, coupled with the fact that every component is colour-coded, ensures that we don't have to rely on language at all," he said. So whether the trainee is from Barmer or Burundi, Madagascar or Jharkhand - "the same teacher and training module works for all".

In keeping with the Barefoot approach that has no reverence for formal degrees, Singh, too, has studied only up to class-VII. Yet, today, he is one of the most competent teachers of solar technology in Tilonia. "It fills me with wonder that the little work we do in Tilonia improves the lives of poor people halfway across the world," he said. "We live like a big family here. Every time a batch arrives, it has people who have neither stepped out of their homes, nor interacted with other cultures. I reassure them as I'd do with my own younger siblings. And every time a batch leaves, it's like seeing my own sisters leave home! They also cry and cry..." I asked him what he taught them, and he said, "It's a two-way learning process. I teach them to assemble solar equipment, and they teach me their language, culture and more."

Singh and fellow trainers have helped train about 100 grandmothers from India and 80 grandmothers from some of the least developed countries of the world. The idea behind training older women is that unlike younger women, they are rooted in their communities and, therefore, can best extend the benefits of their training.

I said - only half in jest - what these unlettered ladies had learnt about complex solar assemblies in six months, was more than what I could hope to learn in six years. Laughingly, Singh said, "Come to me for six months and I'll turn you also into a Barefoot solar engineer!" As I left the workshop, I wondered how our formal systems of education have turned technology into this mysterious entity that only an elite few can understand. It had taken the ladies in Singh's workshop to show me that making usable technology doesn't necessarily need a degree in engineering - all it takes is the willingness to forge ahead barefoot, and a teacher to lead you there.

April 18, 2013

Recently, I read and listened to the classic book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. It was free courtesy of Kindle, Amazon and Audible. The Munchkins were just as memorable from my childhood when I watched the movie.
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo and five other African countries, smaller children are rampant. Almost half of the children in the Congo under the age of five suffer from stunting.
Uneven progress on child stunting in East and Central Africa
NAIROBI, 16 April (IRIN) - Improvements in nutrition and stronger government policies have led to a decline in childhood stunting, according to a new report on child nutrition [ http://www.unicef.org/media/files/nutrition_report_2013.pdf ] by the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF). However, the condition continues to affect some 165 million children under the age of five globally.

Stunting can lead to irreversible brain and body damage in children, making them more susceptible to illness and more likely to fall behind in school. Based on UNICEF's report, IRIN has put together a round-up of the nutrition situations in six East and Central African countries that are among 24 countries with the largest burden and highest prevalence of stunting.

Burundi: Under-five mortality in this small central African country dropped from 183 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1990 to 139 per 1,000 live births in 2012. This is far short of the 63 deaths per 1,000 live births necessary for the country to achieve UN Millennium Development Goal (MDG) [ http://www.who.int/topics/millennium_development_goals/child_mortality/en/ ] 4, which aims to reduce child mortality by two-thirds by 2015. An estimated 58 percent of children under age five are stunted, compared with 56 percent in 1987, according to demographic and health surveys from those years.

Central African Republic (CAR): An estimated 28 percent of under-five deaths in CAR occur within the first month of a child's life; the biggest killers of children under five are malaria, diarrhoea and pneumonia. The percentage of children under age five who are stunted has changed little since 1995, standing at 41 percent in 2010, as has the percentage of children who are underweight, which has remained at about 24 percent for the last 18 years.

There has, however, been significant progress in the number of mothers exclusively breastfeeding their infants. In 2010, 34 percent of infants under six months old were breastfed, compared to just 3 percent in 1995. According to UNICEF, infants who are not breastfed in the first six months of life are "more than 14 times more likely to die from all causes than an exclusively breastfed infant".

Democratic Republic of Congo: Africa's second-largest country bears 3 percent of the global stunting burden, with 43 percent of children under age five suffering from stunting and 24 percent being underweight. Stunting is significantly higher (47 percent) in rural areas than it is in urban areas (34 percent).

The percentage of children who are underweight dropped from 34 percent in 2001 to 24 percent in 2010. DRC's progress towards MDG 1 is described as "insufficient".
Ethiopia: The Horn of Africa nation, which bears 3 percent of the global stunting burden, has seen a steep drop in stunting levels, from an estimated 57 percent in 2000 to 44 percent in 2011. The percentage of underweight under-fives has also dropped significantly, from 42 percent in 2000 to 29 percent in 2011. Between 2000 and 2011, under-five mortality was cut from 139 deaths per 1,000 live births to 77 per 1,000 live births - within striking distance of its MDG 4 target of 66 per 1,000.

Rwanda: Community interventions - such as kitchen gardens and increasing the availability of livestock, as well as measures to boost healthy infant feeding practices like exclusive breastfeeding and the provision of nutritional supplements - saw the percentage of underweight under-fives in Rwanda drop from 20 percent in 2000 to 11 percent in 2010. Enhanced data collection and analysis has also enabled the government to improve its planning and monitoring of child malnutrition.

The report describes the country as "on track" to meet MDG 1.
Tanzania: Bearing 2 percent of the world's stunting burden, Tanzania has made significant strides in improving child nutrition. An estimated 50 percent of infants under six months old were breastfed in 2010, compared to 23 percent in 1992. The country has also brought under-five stunting levels down from 50 percent in 1992 to 42 percent in 2010, but continues to suffer significantly higher stunting in rural children (45 percent) compared to urban children (39 percent).

Tanzania's under-five mortality rate dropped from 158 per 1,000 live births in 1990 to 68 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2010, putting it close to its MDG 4 target of 53 deaths per 1,000 live births. UNICEF's report says the country is "on track" to meet its MDG 1 targets.